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June 8th, 1935, down Cook Inlet, Mt. Augustine was dramatically spewing ash and lava. Meanwhile in the Valley, clouds of road dust accompanied the ongoing eruption of the town of Palmer. The Anchorage Times, advertising a special excursion train to Palmer for a baseball game Sunday, had advised spectators to pack lunch with them due to lack of facilities – then carried ads for two new cafes opened in Palmer just that weekend.

On June 6th 1935, tempers flared at the camp council meeting in the tent city of Palmer, and one gets the impression that reporter Arville Schaleben would have been eating popcorn and laughing at the spectacle had he not had his hands full writing.

In the first week of June, 1935, the early rumblings of dissent and division among the Matanuska colonists took the form of complaining about each other’s dogs at council meetings. Since the situation at Palmer was going to the dogs, today’s post is about the canine members of the Matanuska Colony Project.

The night of June 4th, 1935, saw the first meeting of the Matanuska Colony council. “Alaska Colony Organizes; Big Problem is Garbage,” reported Arville Schaleben, the Milwaukee Journal reporter embedded with the Matanuska project, who watched the humble democratic proceedings like an eager baseball fan, sizing up the players. So far the council’s issues were small, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long.

On Sunday, June 2nd, as families settled into their tent camps and began clearing land, some took the time to write to folks back home.

On June 1st, 1935, the Alaska Railroad began daily passenger service between Anchorage and Palmer. To the existing weekly regular train up the Chickaloon branch line, the new schedule added six days of service using a single self-propelled passenger car, locally known as a brill.

At the end of May, 1935, the complaints began.

Thursday, May 30th, 1935, was Memorial Day (it would not be moved to the last Monday in May for another 33 years). In Palmer, the holiday was observed in the newly cobbled-together temporary meeting hall. “Memorial Hall” would serve as Palmer’s first church, rec building, and even library – for about a month and a half, until an outbreak of disease spurred its overnight conversion into a hospital in mid-July.

On May 29th, 1935, the last eight of the original families selected for the Matanuska Colony finally reached Palmer, along with their fellow passengers from the North Star – the Sherrod family, hired on to nurse the sick colonists quarantined in Seattle; and the 70 cows and 69 horses the North Star had originally planned to transport that voyage.

May 28th , 1935, was a fine spring day in Palmer with no rain, and everyone made the most of it. Work continued on the camps – erecting tents, drilling wells, building roads, and moving families and their belongings – but some made time to play, and to enjoy the scenery.

On May 13th, 1935, families from Wisconsin and Michigan left their old homes for the last time. They would be catching trains late that night and early the next morning bound for Seattle, and then on to the Matanuska Colony in Palmer.

On May 25th , 1935, several Army Medical Corps personnel of the St. Mihiel visited Palmer, to see where their passengers of the last two trips were bound.

On Friday, May 24th, 1935, most of the Michigan and Wisconsin colonists arrived in Palmer. While their men had gone on ahead to participate in the land drawing on the 23rd, the women and children had been forced to wait aboard ship in Seward due to delayed construction of tents. The town was still short on shelter by Friday evening, but everyone would have to make do.

On the morning of May 23rd, 1935, the Matanuska colonists drew slips of paper to find out where their homes would be.

On May 22nd, 1935, the St Mihiel arrived in Seward at 8 AM.  All the Michigan and Wisconsin farm families were only too happy to get off the ship and onto a train bound for Palmer – but, only the men would be leaving Seward on the 22nd.  Tents were still in short supply in Palmer.  The compromise was to send the men on ahead so the drawing for land could happen as soon as possible, while the women and children spent another two nights in Seward aboard ship.

On May 21st, 1935, the Michigan and Wisconsin farmers bound for Palmer were one day out from Seward, and very eager to reach land.  The second voyage of the St. Mihiel for the Matanuska Colony Project was a lot more miserable than the first, and most of the passengers suffered mightily from seasickness.

On May 21st, 1935, the Michigan and Wisconsin farmers bound for Palmer were one day out from Seward, and very eager to reach land.  The second voyage of the St. Mihiel for the Matanuska Colony Project was a lot more miserable than the first, and most of the passengers suffered mightily from seasickness.

On May 18th, 1935, the Matanuska-bound families from Wisconsin and Michigan set sail from Seattle aboard the St Mihiel.

On May 17th, 1935, the Michigan and Wisconsin contingents of the Matanuska Colony Project were in Seattle.  Tomorrow they would sail for Alaska.

While rain fell on the tent city in Palmer, the Michigan and Wisconsin contingents of the Matanuska Colony arrived in Seattle.  The city had planned two days of picnics and speeches and shows for the visiting “pioneers,” but for many of the weary travelers the chief attraction in Seattle would be hot baths and comfortable beds at the Frye Hotel.

May 15th, 1935, was graduation day for students at Palmer and Matanuska. 

Spring had sprung: the ice went out on the Nenana River, colonists from Minnesota went trout fishing at local lakes, and the dirt roads of the Valley were prodigiously muddy.

On May 13th, 1935, families from Wisconsin and Michigan had left their old homes for the last time. They would be catching trains late that night and early the next morning bound for Seattle, and then on to the Matanuska Colony in Palmer.

May 12th, 1935, was Mother’s Day, and the first Sunday since the Minnesota colonists’ arrival in Palmer. Reverend Bert Bingle, recently of Cordova, currently living in a tent in Jim Felton’s field, led a church service in the architect’s office tent.

On May 11th, 1935, the Minnesota colonists woke up in Palmer for the first time, bright morning sunlight coming through their white canvas tents.
Meanwhile in Matanuska – which had started the week as the biggest town east of Wasilla and south of the coal mines, and ended it as the railroad stop before you get to Palmer – the American Legion was gearing up for a big Saturday night dance to meet the newcomers, and had invited all of Anchorage.

May 10th, 1935 was a banner day for the Matanuska Colony Project. After a journey of nearly five thousand miles from Minnesota, the first colonists arrived in Palmer.

Between May 6th and 10th of 1935, the quiet fields along the Palmer railroad siding suddenly swarmed with activity as the Matanuska Colony Project began the first phase of construction.

The St Mihiel docked at Seward on May 6th, 1935, carrying the Minnesota colonists bound for Palmer, as well as 300 transient workers from California.

On May 4th, 1935: while the North Star and St Mihiel were a couple days out from Seward with the first boatloads of colonists and workers, survey crews in the Matanuska Valley had been on the ground for just one month, laying out two hundred 40- and 80-acre farm tracts and Palmer’s new town center.

On May 3rd, 1935, the ship North Star was coming up the Inside Passage with workers and building materials bound for Palmer. The ship had spent two days in Ketchikan loading lumber for the Matanuska Colony, then stopped in Juneau for more lumber and stoves.

On May 2nd 1935, the Matanuska colonists were en route to Alaska on the St Mihiel; the project administrators and transient workers aboard the North Star were loading lumber in Ketchikan

On May 1st, 1935, the army transport ship St Mihiel steamed out of San Francisco carrying 67 Minnesota farm families and 300 transient workers bound for Palmer.

By April 28th, the Minnesotan contingent of the Matanuska Colony Project were two days into their journey west and north, rattling towards San Francisco on the “Alaska Special.”